Local Conditions
What actually shortens joint life in Ladera Ranch.
Hillside lots are built on cut and fill, and the two halves do not behave the same way. The cut side sits on undisturbed ground. The fill side sits on engineered soil that keeps consolidating for years after the house is finished. A pool deck spanning both will move differentially, and the expansion joint is the only part of the assembly designed to take that movement. When the joint hardens, that movement has to go somewhere else, and where it goes is the slab. In Ladera Ranch that shows up on the decks around Covenant Hills, Oak Knoll, Bridgepark and Terramor, which is where most of our Orange County work starts: a joint that still looks continuous from the patio door and is already open when you kneel on it.


